LITMIR.BIZ

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hearing otherwise.

      Barney ignored this, just squinched up his face so his eyes got smaller than beads. “So the story’s about kids, babies. Abuse?”

      “No.”

      “Not gang crap. I’m tired of that bullshit.”

      “No. It’s about legal stuff. The stuff you hired me to look at.”

      “Ah. Some kind of lawsuit?”

      Jake buttoned his jacket, stood up. Barney didn’t budge. Jake sighed. “It’s about an epidemic of malpractice lawsuits involving newborns in the last three years. All involving good hospitals, and not just good doctors, but the best doctors in the city. Which is why I got interested. It’s a puzzle.”

      Barney got a feral gleam in his eye. He’d never made it to the top, never would, barely had the talent to keep a weekly newspaper together. But that didn’t mean he didn’t hunger for more. “What’s wrong with the babies?”

      Jake shook his head. “There’s no point going into it until I’m sure I’ve got a story.”

      “God, you’re annoying.” Barney straightened up to his full five foot four. “All right, keep your story secret for now. But just so you know—if you quit me and go back to lawyering, I’ll cut you in the street like a dead dog.”

      “I’m not going back to being a lawyer.” Jake didn’t have to swear it.

      Barney nodded. “Of course not. Why would you go back to making a hundred, a hundred grand and a half every year, for a job that pays a little more than minimum wage? And have to give up a boss like me besides?”

      “If I were only gay, we could be lovers,” Jake assured him, which—thank God—was enough to send Barney cackling back to his office.

      Still Jake lingered, knowing how much his dad wanted to attend this dinner, not wanting to be late…but really not wanting to go anywhere near the Crandalls.

      Kasey was the problem. Jake had no intention of going near her, not in any personal way. Once he’d identified her as forbidden, that issue became easy. He’d shoot himself before going near a married woman—so that solved that.

      But four days ago he’d come across another medical lawsuit stemming from the obstetrics department in Randolph Hospital. The hospital where she’d had her baby. Just weeks ago.

      “Kasey, where are you?”

      Hearing Graham’s exasperated call, Kasey quickly patted the sleeping baby’s rump one last time, checked that the baby monitor was on, and then closed the door to the nursery. In the master bedroom, Graham was fighting with his favorite burgundy-and-blue striped tie. The tie was winning. It always did. With a chuckle, she stepped under her husband’s chin and took over.

      “It’s almost eight. Company’s almost due. And then the tie got mean.”

      “I can see that,” Kasey said. “Damn tie.”

      “That’s what I said,” Graham said, still sounding aggrieved, yet out of nowhere he suddenly handed her a small narrow box.

      “What’s this?”

      “Just a little present. Finally, our lives are going back to normal as of tonight.”

      Kasey saw the familiar gleam of desire in Graham’s eyes, and felt her heart sink. Graham knew she’d had her six-week checkup and the doctor had okayed sex again—and she’d always loved her husband’s ardent lovemaking. It was just…she was so beat. Between the doctor appointment and the visit with her mom and night feedings, she was drooping on the inside, and the dinner party hadn’t even started.

      “Come on, love. Open the box.”

      She did—and found a heavy chain of diamonds. “Good heavens, Graham!”

      “You like it?” Obviously pleased at her shocked expression, he stepped behind her and hooked the chain. In the bureau mirror she could see herself—wearing a black dress, to please him. Her fingers touched the stones at her neck. Truthfully, the setting was huge and heavy and didn’t suit her—but how ungrateful could a woman be? They were diamonds.

      “What an incredible surprise! I’m overwhelmed!”

      “Good.” He dropped a kiss on her neck, clearly approving the dress, her swept-up hair, his choice of jewels. “It’s because you never ask, Kasey, that I love giving you things. And finally, tonight, I’ve got my wife back.”

      God knew, she hoped he’d feel that way. It was increasingly troubling to her that Graham still hadn’t bonded with the baby and seemed to resent every minute Kasey spent with Tess. Tonight, though, she really hoped to turn that around.

      When the doorbell rang, she went downstairs to greet the first guest. The Bartholomews arrived first, then the Fields and Mauriers. Although Kasey knew the neighborhood crowd now, her throat initially dried up as if she’d swallowed a cup of sand. There wasn’t an ugly woman in the group—or anyone who had less than a bachelor’s degree. Kasey always had the sensation that she didn’t belong here, never had, never would. No matter how wonderful the women had been to her, they just weren’t her brand of normal. They never got zits. Nobody’s hair ever had a dark root or a split end. She couldn’t imagine them suffering from gas, or a tampon leak, or even throwing up in an embarrassing situation.

      Yet that first terrorizing reaction faded after a few minutes, as it often did.

      She liked them. Really liked them. Kay and Mary Ellen ran their own businesses; Willa taught at U of D. Binky was too fast-lane for Kasey and always would be, but Karen—Bud Maurier’s wife—had been a mentor and friend from the day she’d moved into the neighborhood. Besides. They all knew by now that she had hopeless taste in clothes, and she’d been frank about her blue-collar background. When she first married Graham, she’d just presumed that the Grosse Pointe neighborhood would be a nest of snobs, and she couldn’t have been more wrong. Naturally there were a few elitists, but not many. From the beginning, they’d taken her in as if she were a fellow sister.

      They did tonight, too. And she felt a little easier because she was dressed the way she was supposed to be—thanks to Graham. Bud Maurier gave her a kiss and made her laugh. She was flying around pretty high, still greeting guests. Only right after Jim and Chloe Cranston came the gentle, frail Joe McGraw—accompanied by his son, Jake.

      Her heart oddly tripped when she shook Jake’s hand and welcomed him. “I’m so glad you came,” she said, as if he were any other guest, yet she found her hand clasping his for a second longer, her gaze oddly captivated by his.

      He wasn’t any other guest. She remembered him, from the night at the hospital, and he’d stopped to help her. Since then she’d heard more gossip about him from the neighborhood women, who’d slung stories about his wild years and drinking. It wasn’t as if he’d dwelled in her mind—there’d been nothing in her mind for a month but her baby. But now, those deep, old, sexy eyes seemed to touch her. The tip of his smile. The way he was alone, even as he was helping his father join the gathering.

      Of course, that odd moment passed, and then she was running nonstop. The pressure was on. She was determined to show Graham that she could easily put on a dinner the way she used to—that the baby wasn’t going to inhibit them from resuming the social life he valued so much. She could have hired a baby-sitter for Tess and extra household help, but she’d always coped alone before.

      Dinner was served at nine. The problem with making everything look effortless was that it took so much effort. Graham did like things just-so. The housekeeper, Gladys, had helped clean, but Kasey polished the sterling icers and water goblets herself, created centerpieces with cranberry candles and fresh flowers. She’d done the new baby potatoes in a clay pot, marinated the London broil with her own original sauce, made a twelve-egg sponge cake from scratch. Now she brought dishes, kissed guests, served the fresh shrimp, scooped the quiet ones into conversations, until finally, everyone was sitting down and digging in.

      “Kasey,

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